Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew

Overview

The essays in this volume arose out of the Society of Biblical Literature section on linguistics and Biblical Hebrew and have been selected to provide a summary and statement of the state of research in this area. The sixteen articles are organized into sections on phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, discourse analysis, historical/comparative linguistics, and graphemics.

Contents

Introduction

Walter R. Bodine - The Study of Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew

Phonology: Structural

Monica S. Devens - What Descriptive Phonologists Do: One Approach to the Study of Language, with Particular Attention to Biblical Hebrew

E. J. Revell - The Development of Segol in an Open Syllable as a Reflex of a: An Exercise in Descriptive Phonology

Phonology: Generative

Edward L. Greenstein - An Introduction to a Generative Phonology of Biblical Hebrew

Historical/Comparative Linguistics

Graphemics

M. O'Connor - Writing Systems and Native-Speaker Analyses

Stephen J. Lieberman - Toward a Graphemics of the Tiberian Bible

Praise for the Print Edition

The authors, editor, and publisher are to be congratulated for a handsomely produced volume which introduces philologists and biblical scholars to linguistics through accessible, jargon-free definitions and explanations of linguistic theory. The introductory essays...provide helpful introductions to the basic areas of linguistic inquiry; those on morphology, discourse analysis, and graphemics are classics.

Bodine's assemblage is broad and impressive...Careful reading of this book will make the reader more appreciative of the contributions and promise that linguistics holds for biblical studies, particularly in the area of Biblical Hebrew.

– Robert D. Bergen, Hannibal-LaGrange College
in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (June 1996)

...represents a valuable addition to the literature on classical Hebrew. Linguistic and Biblical Hebrew then concludes with a useful, though selective bibliography. The book itself if neatly typeset, securely bound, and reasonbly priced.

– Richard L. Goerwitz, The University of Chicago
in Journal of Near Eastern Studies (Vol. 55, No. 3, 1996)

Neither the philologist nor the linguist will put this anthology down without having learned something useful and significant.